Return to Foxworth Hall
by Morganalefey55
Summary: Complete. Possibly 'R' rated, more likely 'PG-13.' Cory is alive. He never died. Carrie and Cory are living with Cathy and Christopher at Dr. Paul Sheffield's. They are about twelve years old. They share a bedroom, and are inseparable. They return to Foxw


Return To Foxworth Hall  
  
By Morganalefey55  
  
Preface:  
Complete. Possibly 'R' rated, more likely 'PG-13.' Cory is alive. He never died. Carrie and Cory are living with Cathy and Christopher at Dr. Paul Sheffield's. They are about twelve years old. They share a bedroom, and are inseparable. They return to Foxworth Hall to visit with their mother Corrine. About 3700 words.  
  
Carrie:  
"Cathy can be so irritating. I ask her a question, then she asks me twenty questions, her twenty-question-game, and then she never answers what I asked," I complained to Cory. He had heard it all before.  
  
"You weren't asking about periods and bra sizes again were you? I thought you already had that conversation with her," Cory responded, "as I recall you asked Dr. Paul. He said to ask Christopher. Chris said to ask Cathy, and Cathy had given you the usual 'wait until you need to know,' right?"  
  
"Well, I may need to know some day, Cory. These things can sneak up on a girl, like in the middle of the night; best she be prepared," I responded. I was small for my age, and had no use for a bra, or anything else that bigger girls needed. Neither Cory nor I had pubic hair yet. Cory's voice was still high and squeaky. Cory and I had been sick when we came here, several years ago, but Dr. Paul took good care of us. We were both healthy, but small for twelve, looking to be about nine or ten. We weighed eighty pounds each, I being slightly taller than Cory.  
  
"Did you ever try that trick I told you about? One boy at school told me to ask a parent some question about oral sex. That will get them going, big time; they will ask you where you ever got an idea like that, who are you associating with, what are you doing, did you leave your room last night after bedtime, all sorts of questions. Then, when they run out of saliva you just answer, 'I just wanted to know for a question in health class, that is all,' then look innocent."  
  
"No, I didn't ask about that, Cory, and I am not going to. You know how Cathy and Chris get, every time we bring up the 'S' topic; they look embarrassed and try to change the subject. What I am talking about are our parents, our real parents. I do not remember our father at all, and I only have vague recollections about momma. We were sick a lot that last year in the attic. Christopher dodges the issue, and Cathy gets angry. She has an attitude problem about our real mother. I would like to find out about her myself. But how do I find out?" Carrie was frustrated.  
  
"I know where Foxworth Hall is, Carrie, at least on a map. That is where we used to live. All we would need to do is make up some story, like going to a friend's house for a long weekend, then take some clothes, money, and buy bus tickets. We could be there and back in two or three days, have ourselves a good time, hopefully see momma but not our grandmother. If we like her, maybe she would even let us stay there for the summer. If not, get back out of there and return to Dr. Paul here," Cory had it figured out, "we do not need to be eighteen or twenty-one to buy a bus ticket; it is not like beer or cigarettes. We just say we are going to visit grandma if anyone asks."  
  
We planned and plotted. A really good weekend was coming up, a holiday weekend. Cathy had something about ballet dancing going on, so she would be away. Chris was busy with studying his doctoring. Paul left us alone, mostly. The housekeeper, Henny, only wanted us to make our beds and carry our dishes to the sink. If we said we would be gone to a friend's house all weekend she would be happy. We had plenty of money. I suggested to Cory we take only old underwear, socks and tee shirts so we could throw them away when they got dirty instead of bringing a lot of things back. That was cool with him. Friday morning came around, we ate breakfast and left, with our canvas overnight bags, walking to the bus station. I was wearing a bra stuffed with pairs of socks to make myself look a little older. I bought the tickets and we were off, Foxworth bound. We had to transfer once to another bus, and ultimately got to where we had to walk again. Happily it was not raining. We would have been soaked.  
  
It was late afternoon when we got close to Foxworth. Neither of us wanted to just go up to ring the doorbell. Cory had a cheap pair if binoculars he'd received for his birthday, two years previously. He looked into all of the windows, from behind a clump of bushes. He saw an outside door leading downstairs into the basement he thought might be unlocked, and we both believed maybe the servants and gardeners would have the weekend off.  
  
We had brought food with us, so decided to eat now; we were both hungry; we could use the bushes for a toilet. It would become difficult eating and going to a bathroom once we got inside, we did not want to be discovered. We took turns looking and eating. Eventually, we both sneaked up on the house, opened the door and went down some sloping steps into the basement. Happily we found a freezer there, with food in it we could eat if we needed it. I could go a long time without eating, like all day if I had to. Cory, probably not. There we met a dwarf, a middle-aged woman, who said her name was Olga Foxworth. I asked her just who Olga Foxworth was; she told us she was the daughter of Olivia and Garland Foxworth, and that she was deformed from birth, so had been kept in closets and the basement all of her life; no one wanted her known outside of the hall, Foxworth Hall. I started to tell her about us, but Cory nudged me, saying by the look on his face that we should not tell anyone anything. So I just told Olga we used to live here and wanted to see what it looked like. Olga did not care, but told us how to get around without being discovered. She did it all the time. She was smart but ugly, I thought, but I did not tell her that.  
  
Cory and I went slowly through the house, looking out for bright lights, since it was evening now. We found our way through the first and second, then the third floors, and to the attic. Chris and Cathy had known how to get from one floor to the others; they had stolen food at night. The attic was familiar to both Cory and me. "I remember a lot of it now, Cory. We used to play here, and up there, up those stairs, behind all of the trunks and everything. Remember, we used to go out on the roof and get some sun? In warm weather we just wore underwear so we could get a tan. I was sick a lot, same as you, but the sun seemed to help; but when we started eating the donuts, nothing helped any more. That is when Chris got us out of there."  
  
"I remember some of it, Carrie," Cory said, "we used to sleep in those two beds, you with Cathy and I with Christopher. What do you want to do now? It is too dark to go back home now, we will need to sleep here tonight. Do you want to take anything home with us?"  
  
"No, but I would like to see if momma is still here. I do not care about our grandmother; she was mean. But momma, I want to ask her about a few things. Is our father really dead? I do not remember him at all. What is she doing, and why doesn't she have us with her any more? Chris and Cathy are old enough to be on their own, in their twenties. We can fight her if we have to; we are only twelve, but between the two of us we could at least knock her down, then run," I said.  
  
Cory was ready to move on. We both had to use the toilet, but decided not to flush it for fear it would make noise. We could do that later, or just leave it for a housekeeper, after we were gone. Cory and I slowly went down stairs, looking for light or noise coming out from under doors. We thought one bedroom was grandmother's, but we decided not to find out. Eventually we found another one, with a little music and light coming out from under the door. Cory opened the door slowly. It was not locked. The light was really dim inside, but we could see that there were two people in bed, a man and a woman. I was pretty sure they were naked, just from looking at the clothes that were on the chairs and floor. There was women's underwear, also nightclothes. The man's under-shorts were on the floor. Cory always slept in his white briefs, unless it was really cold, then he wore pajamas. They were playing, tickling each other or something, and did not hear us come in. I thought they might be having sex, or getting ready to, although I knew nothing about having sex, except the basics, like what on whom goes where.  
  
I could barely see that the woman had hair like ours. I took a chance and spoke: "Momma?" She almost jumped out of her skin, whirled around and sat up. Cory and I saw the top of her, but she covered up, pulling a sheet over the front of herself. The man started to turn towards us, too, but she pushed his face into a pillow, rather hard, like she did not want him seeing us or us seeing him. "Are you our momma?" I asked again, "It is we, Carrie and Cory." Well, she whispered something to the man, then got out of bed, put on some panties and a robe, not caring if Cory or I saw her rear end or not. Neither did Cory for that matter. He turned his eyes away. I owed him one for that, being a gentleman.  
  
She shoo-ed us out of the bedroom and followed us, leading us to a place to talk a few doors away. "Just what are you two doing here?" she asked, "I could have you arrested for being runaways, or breaking into this house, something, I do not know what."  
  
Cory snapped back at her, "We could have you arrested for trying to poison us, too, so don't even bother with the threats. We just want to ask some questions, that is all. Like who is that man, and what became of our father?"  
  
"And why aren't you taking care of us now?" I asked, "Cathy and Christopher are grown up, but we heard about you trying to poison us. You cannot hurt them, or us, but we can hurt you really bad, like send you to prison. Look, all we want is answers, that is all." I shut up, waiting to hear what she had to say.  
  
Corrine, our momma, told us, "No, that man is not your father. Your father died long ago. You would not remember him. Cathy and Christopher would. Your grandmother treated me like a slave. I was just trying to get enough money so that I could support you four. Just you try supporting four kids when you are a widow, some day, Carrie. You will see that it is impossible, unless you marry some man with money, or get it from your own or your ex-husband's family. That man you saw me with is just a friend. His name would mean nothing to you. Your grandmother, Olivia, is sick, dying. Now, I have to take care of her, day and night. She caught some incurable disease from that man she married, Foxworth, who got it from his own father. It has gradually caused her health to fail. She won't hire anyone to care for herself, she says it takes too much money. I should get a lot of her money after she dies, but you never know until the lawyer reads the will."  
  
Cory said, "We met some woman, a dwarf in the basement who said her name was Olga Foxworth. Is she Olivia's daughter?"  
  
"Yes, she is. She is that way because of the disease. That is why Olivia is dying. Olga may die of it herself some day. Olivia was raped by her own father-in-law, Garland Foxworth. Garland is the father of Olga." Our mother told us the name of the disease, saying it was a virus, but I did not remember the name of it. Cory did, though. "Look," she continued, "you can sleep in the basement where Olga lives now. I will get you some food if you are hungry. I really don't want to talk to you or get to know you any better. I was sad when I lost you four, but you are just bringing all that back to me now." She glanced back towards her bedroom, like she had some unfinished business with that man there.  
  
Cory answered her, "If it is all the same with you, we would rather get our own food. And, we came a long way to see you. If you do not want trouble, big trouble, come down to the basement in the morning and talk to us some more. We really want to know some other things; like do you have any more children, that you had after we were gone, almost poisoned to death?" Corrine, our mother, came with us down stairs and unlocked the pantry, telling us to get whatever food we wanted, but to lock it back up again. The servants would steal food. I thought it odd that they worried about the price of a little food, in a big house like this, but I let it go. Then she left, back to her gentleman friend, the man in her bed. A lover was more important than we were, or so it appeared. She did tell us that she had never produced any more children, however.  
  
Cory and I took some food down into the basement with us, enough for ourselves and for Olga, if she wanted any. We ate, and used the bathroom in the basement. There was a lot of old furniture down there, so we just took some sofa cushions and pillows, making a place to sleep. We did move a little furniture so anyone sneaking up on us would make noise and waken us. Cory and I slept in just our underwear, but snuggled up together. We slept that way a lot, when we could get away with it. Cory and I did not plan to have sex with each other, and had not started anything. We knew that Cathy and Christopher did, but not every night; not even every week or month, in fact. I'd had boyfriends. They were exciting, but always got bossy sooner or later. I never did anything intimate with them; and Cory did not even have a girlfriend yet. I just did not think Cory and I having sex with each other would be pleasant. Too many emotions would be involved. Cory was not bossy like a lot of boys, and I trusted him. "Can you go to sleep, Cory?" I asked, "Grandmother Olivia would have a cow if she caught us sleeping together. Good thing she is sick, and cannot come downstairs here."  
  
"I think I can sleep alright, Carrie," Cory said, "I was just thinking about a lot of things to ask momma when she comes here in the morning. I should write them all down, but I will try to remember them all. I feel like I am falling to sleep now." Cory and I both did fall asleep, and slept like logs. We had one flashlight, which we used during the night, then later we saw the windows start to get light when morning came. Both of us went into the bathroom and got cleaned up, putting on clean socks, undershirts, and panties for me, tightie-whities for Cory. We tossed the dirty socks and underwear into a trash container. We dressed again for traveling, thinking this was all we really wanted to do, see momma and go back home.  
  
After eating some more of the food, we straightened things up a little, just in time for when momma, Corrine, arrived. She still was not any happier to see us than she had been. I gave up on any hopes for a hug and a kiss. It would be hard for her to be affectionate, after trying to kill us several years before. I started in, "What are your plans, momma? Are you going to live here, with that man we saw you with last evening? Do you even want us back?"  
  
"No," she replied, "I do not want you back. You are better off without me in your lives. I am not going to marry that man, but I would like to marry a nice man, some day. If Olivia dies I should get some money, and not need to get married. You children make me look old. It is almost impossible for a woman with children, even grown children, to attract a husband. Men always think they are younger, and attractive to younger females. No man over forty wants a girl his own age, if he can get a girl half of his age. Do you think I put too much emphasis on being married? Well, all I know is how to do clerical work; that will not pay the bills, at least not the bills for nice clothes or a car."  
  
Cory wanted to know what we should tell Chris and Cathy, if we even let them know we had seen Corrine. Momma answered, simply, "If they are doing well with their lives do not tell them anything. If Cathy is angry with me, I do not blame her. I am the same way, and would be angry myself. I am angry at your father for being dead, and I know it was not his fault." Neither Cory nor I had any more questions, so we all said our goodbyes. She left, and we parted company with Olga, then we let ourselves out the same basement door we had come in through. We did not even take food. By now I was more interested in something hot and good to eat, like a hamburger or a taco, maybe a slice of pizza, or a nice salad. I just was not sure what I wanted.  
  
We walked back to where we had gotten off of the bus before, the previous day. It took a long time, but eventually a bus came and picked us up. We went back to where we'd changed busses. There we bought a nice lunch; Cory had a cheeseburger. I had a chicken and lettuce salad. Then we were on our way back to Paul Sheffield's house. Henny did not see us come in, so we went to our room, showered together, scrubbing each other's backs good, and changed into clean clothing again, just trying to look like we had come home from an overnight stay with friends. After we put everything away we went downstairs. Henny told us we had left our beds very nice: quite a compliment, coming from her.  
  
No one ever knew we had been away to Foxworth. I was content not to tell Cathy or Christopher we had seen momma. After all, what was there to tell? She had tried to poison us once; she no longer wanted us as her children. We just let it go at that. Between Cathy and Dr. Paul, I did not want any more parent figures in my life. Cory and I went in-line-skating on some sidewalks nearby. It eventually started getting dark, so we went home, had dinner with Cathy, Chris, Paul and Henny; finally we got cleaned up again for bed and talked for a while. "Cory, did you like momma or not?" I asked.  
  
"She was alright, Carrie; I think after we grow up, become adults, she may feel differently about us. I hope she gets married, or gets a pile of money when our grandmother dies. That is the only reason she did not want us around; grandmother really hated us, and momma felt we would spoil everything for her, trying to look twenty-five or thirty when she was over forty. You know how hard it is for us, trying to be like other twelve-year-olds when we look nine or ten. I have to run and hide a lot from the bigger boys; other girls call you names in your class at school, like you were someone's little sister. Olga probably felt the same way; that is why she hid in the basement at Foxworth instead of coming out to meet other people. I wonder if she ever went to school when she was little? Maybe not. She did not seem very bright."  
  
We talked about a few other things, but were getting tired. I put on a summer nightgown over my panties; Cory took off his clothes except for his undershirt and briefs, and we got under the covers in my bed. I liked snuggling when we went to sleep. It was like being two little puppies. Sometimes I worried a little about having feelings of modesty, which were growing. But modesty was a nuisance. I just liked being with Cory, and he with me. We could save the modesty for when we were with other people. Cathy and Chris slept in the same room together, but not the same bed; not usually, just sometimes, as far as we knew.  
  
The End 


End file.
